A Response to Climate Change

Shopping and Carbon Footprints

Walking through a number of town centres in the run-up to Christmas and the New Year sales I was struck by how many people were out shopping. Reasons vary, but I do feel that a good part of what makes shopping so attractive as an activity is that many of the products on display have a large embodied energy content / carbon footprint that we rarely pay a true price for.

By embodied content which I have discussed in previous posts, I mean the cumulative quantity of energy consumed, as well as the carbon dioxide emitted in sourcing, manufacturing and delivering to market the raw materials and finished products we buy. To these 'life cycle costs' one can add the fuel consumed in driving to, as well as the energy needed to run the malls we frequent. These now represent the pinnacle of 'retail therapy' where ever in the World one looks.

There was a time when people purchased (or bartered) only those goods that they really needed. However sometime during the twentieth century, we seem to have become serial consumers hooked on the purchase of products no longer essential to our physical well-being, but ones which are marketed mainly to satisfy our material desires. Most of these products such as electronics, fashion accessories, cosmetics, jewellery and foodstuffs have a high resource content. This also includes life-style aspirational, big ticket items such as cars, homes and even holidays.

Modern consumers in both the developed and developing nations of the World only see the glamorous side of shopping malls. Although designed to enhance the shopping experience, in practice they are little more than material hubs that consume resources and generate waste in the process of bringing consumer and product together. And even if shoppers were aware of this, many would find it difficult to change a habit that has become a modern way of life!

A brief search of property statistics reveals there were some 819 shopping centres and 1340 retail parks in the UK in 2009. At the same time, consumption (retailing and supply of services) is now reported to represent as much as two thirds of the UK's economy and that of other developed nations. This is a major change from 50 years ago when manufacturing constituted the largest sector of our economy. The carbon footprint of goods produced in the UK may have fallen dramatically, but those of imported goods widely displayed and purchased in our shopping centers continues to grow.

The fact that consumer spending drives the modern economy limits choices available to governments. Efforts to raise additional revenue or improve people's perception of well being invariably rely on a drive to increase gross domestic product which only serves to grow the carbon footprint of a nation. We also run our economies in a 'sanitized' mode that increasingly removes consumers from the processes of manufacture and where society and those reporting this fact, draw comfort from the mistaken idea that things can only improve. In reality, we have simply outsourced the hard work and emissions to nations such as China.

I suspect such a state of affairs can only last for a decade or two before the planet's ability to sustain an ever growing number of consumers and all our shopping malls will be overwhelmed.

A Severe Start to Winter

This seems to have been another one of those years where you could attribute a number extreme weather events to the forces of nature unleashed by climate change. We have seen flash floods in the UK, extreme floods in Pakistan, drought and wildfires in Russia and now the early onset of winter in Europe brings with it near record low temperatures for the time of year.

Invariably climate change deniers will point to the arrival of winter in Europe as a sign that emissions of greenhouse gases cannot possibly be causing the world to warm. Others, amongst whom I count myself, would say that the weather we have been experiencing is a sign of the increasing instability we can expect as atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other temperature forcing emissions continue to rise.

Early Winter Temperatures - Europe 2010
Reproduced (without permission) from Weather Underground (wunderground.com)
Also visit the site for animated maps of the Jet stream

Whatever point of view you choose to adopt, there is still insufficient knowledge for scientists to explain with conviction the cause of such unseasonally low temperatures. Options that have been identified include:

• Weakening of the Gulf Stream which normally brings warm waters from the tropics, sufficient to compensate for cold weather coming from the Arctic. This has been discussed by many authors - see for example, an article published by the BBC in 2005: Ocean changes will cool Europe and one by NASA appearing on it's Ocean Motion website.
• A loop in the North Atlantic Jet Stream which circulates at high altitude (typically 10,000 meters) has pulled high pressure, cold Arctic air much further south than normal. To give climate change deniers their due, such a change in the weather's footprint could be influenced by solar activity, rather than human induced climate change.

Paradoxically, this recent winter weather may be a consequence of global warming that appears to be responsible for the steady increase in the amounts of ice lost from Greenland and the Arctic icecap. The fresh melt water pouring into the sea has reduced salinity levels in the Northern Atlantic. This cold water sinks more slowly, which is in turn has slowed down the engine that drives the Gulf Stream.

The Ocean Circulation System
Adapted from the IPCC Third Assessment Report, 2001

Schematic of the World's ocean circulation system which includes north-south routes in each of the major oceans that join with the Antarctic circumpolar circuit. This system contributes substantially to the transport and distribution of heat across the planet, e.g. flow of the Gulf Stream towards the North Pole warms Europe by up to 10°C.

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Availability of Fuel

It remains to be seen whether extreme winters will become the norm in Europe. More worryingly is the fact that the inextricable draw down of natural resources coupled with growing demand by the developing nations, means member states are getting closer to a point where they will find it difficult to source the fuel needed to isolate their populations from the full effects of harsh weather. For example, here in the UK a whole generation has grown-up accustomed to the idea that gas central heating boilers can always be turned on when it is cold. In reality, we are increasingly reliant on imports of gas from Norway (Ormen Lange), Russia (Siberia) and the Middle East (shipments of liquefied natural gas). Most of these supplies will be exhausted within 15 years, notwithstanding the fact that a growing percentage of our population is already struggling to find the money to pay their heating bills.

Letter to The Chemical Engineer

Prompted by a letter in October's edition of The Chemical Engineer (TCE) expressing doubts as to whether emissions of carbon dioxide were responsible for climate change, I found myself writing to the editor of the magazine for a second time in as many months. Here is a slightly amended version of my letter:

Madam,

In response to last month’s letter from Malcolm Leach, I believe chemical engineers should not rely on the debate about whether carbon dioxide is responsible for global warming as an excuse to delay development of the analytical tools needed to quantify and compare the 'carbon footprint' / 'energy returned on energy invested' of the processes we design. Some of these processes, such as those used to monetise stranded hydrocarbon assets have large embodied energy contents and are carbon intensive in operation. Others such as those that seek to sequestrate emissions of carbon dioxide from power plants reduce operating efficiencies and raise utility demands, most particularly that of cooling water.

We live in times where the planet's ability to accommodate emissions from industrial processes (be they to the atmosphere, water or the soil) continues to give cause for concern. Chemical engineers therefore need to be extremely mindful of the public and regulatory response should warnings about climate change come to pass and we were seen not to have taken a precautionary stance in respect to quantifying the risks and potential liabilities associated with the release of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases (GHG) to the environment.

It should also be a concern to the Institute that other groups are taking a lead in formulating procedures and codes of practices to record and quantify such emissions. Amongst many examples, one can point to work by the GHG Protocol Initiative to develop a product and supply chain standard, the University of Bath’s efforts to quantify the embodied energy content of materials of construction and McKinsey & Co’s work to cost GHG abatement curves. It may also be noted that the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) has even proposed that only professionally qualified accountants be authorised to assure GHG emissions statements. The Institute’s sole contribution to date appears to be the publication some 8 years ago of a procedure covering sustainable development metrics in the process industries.

I would be interested to learn if other members of the Institute feel that chemical engineers should take a more proactive role in accounting for carbon and emissions of greenhouse gases or whether as Malcolm suggests, we should leave things until future surveys show the public has had a change of heart about climate change.

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Footnote: Energy return on investment (EROI) is the ratio of gross fuel extracted to economic energy required directly and indirectly to deliver fuel to society in a useful form - see the following paper for details: Energy and US Economy: A Biophysical Perspective, Cleveland, et al, 1984. Also see an article by Jamie Bull on the oCo Carbon website which compares the energy returned on energy invested (EROEI) for a number of technologies used to generate electricity.

A New Accounting Model Required

Recent correspondence about confidence in the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) detracts from the more substantive issue of whether it is time to develop an accounting methodology capable of quantifying the impact emissions of carbon dioxide and other such externalities have on the process of generating wealth.

It is easy to question the work of the IPCC, but it will require real effort to develop an internationally agreed set of rules that businesses can use to assess how much they rely on the draw-down of natural resources and utilisation of the atmosphere, water and the soil to dispose of their waste. In this regard, it is important to note that the World has moved on from an era when the development and accumulation of human wealth were constrained by the availability of capital, to one where its generation will increasingly be constrained by the availability of resources.

The model used to generate such capital relied on the creation of concepts in accounting (creditor and debtor / balance sheet / profit and loss) as well as ownership (company and stock market) that is now showing its age under an onslaught of off-balance sheet, leveraged and derivative financing. Given that it has taken the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and its predecessor the IASC, going on thirty years to redraft the model (that in all likelihood is broken), we may need as much time again, to draw up a new set of rules capable of identifying the true utilization of natural resources in the process of creating value. By then, the IPCC will long have put its house in order.

Publication of GHG Emissions

Although some 25,000 organisations across Europe currently report their Scope 1 greenhouse emissions under the Community's Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), it is probably not appreciated that these same business entities must also submit details to their national authorities under separate laws designed to regulate the release of pollutants into the environment (atmosphere, water and/or the soil). In the case of emissions to the atmosphere, this data is collected under the scope of the following directives:

• Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC)
• Large Combustion Plants (LCP)
• Waste Incineration
• Solvent Emissions

Once collected and reviewed, this data is placed on the European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (E-PRTR) where it can accessed freely by the public under the auspices of the internationally ratified Aarhus Convention. Similar registers are maintained and access rights provided in other regions of the World, though results for North America which are published by the Commission of Environmental Cooperation (CEC) presently does not provide simple access to details of greenhouse gases.

Example of Reported Pollutants Released to the Atmosphere
Didcot 'A' Power Station, Oxford, 2008. Details from a submission by
RWE nPower plc to the UK's Department for Environment and Rural Affairs (DEFRA)
Source: European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (location sited)
Greenhouse gases highlighted in red

Pollutant Name	Total	Method
Carbon Dioxide (CO2)	5,180,000 tons	Calculated
Nitrous Oxide (N2O)	60.5 tons	Calculated
Carbon Monoxide (CO)	2,600 tons	Calculated
Nitrogen oxides (NOx / NO2)	10,500 tons	Calculated
Sulphur oxides (SOx / SO2)	19,100 tons	Calculated
Chlorine and inorganic compounds (as HCl)	229 tons	Calculated
Fluorine and inorganic compounds (as HF)	252 tons	Calculated
Arsenic and compounds (as As)	92.6 kg	Calculated
Chromium and compounds (as Cr)	139 kg	Calculated
Copper and compounds (as Cu)	231 kg	Calculated
Mercury and compounds (as Hg)	11.6 kg	Calculated
Nickel and compounds (as Ni)	500 kg	Calculated
Zinc and compounds (as Zn)	589 kg	Calculated
Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)	200 g	Calculated
Napthalene	111 kg	Calculated
Particulate matter (PM10)	1,090 t	Calculated

Corporate Publication of Results

Once placed in the public domain, one would hope that larger businesses would take the opportunity to collate their performance and then discuss in the management commentaries that accompany their annual accounts, details of the risks associated with the emissions they are responsible for. In practice, such companies remain reluctant to disclose this data directly and increasingly seek to present it in sustainability or corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports such as those championed by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). Sadly, the formats of these reports are becoming all too similar and tend to underwhelm readers by avoiding any real assessment of performance !!

A specific example of a reluctance to publish details of green- house gas emissions can be found in a response submitted in 2009 by the American Petroleum Institute (API) to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), during a consultation period held before the introduction of mandatory reporting in the US. This organisation which develops standards and codes of practice for companies in the oil and gas sector expressed concern that others might be able to reverse engineer the business strategies of members if competitors had access to details of the emissions (particularly locations) that its members would be obliged to submit under the new reporting rule. In the event, the EPA was partly swayed by the argument. It still requires emissions from facilities to be published, but it has formulated an amendment that excludes data inputs considered confidential and commercially sensitive.

Some companies in the UK's retail sector such as Walkers Crisps and Tesco have also invested time and effort to determine and publish details of the carbon footprint of the products they sell. However, it seems unlikely that knowing how much carbon dioxide was emitted in manufacturing and delivering something like a packet of crisps to a point of sale will do much to convince consumers to change their life styles !!

Other sources that publish corporate details of greenhouse gas emissions include voluntary reports from the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and The Climate Registry (TCR). Whilst data from the CDP is accessible, current and provides a snapshot of the total carbon emissions of some of the World's largest companies, the presentation of results (see previous post) appears to be losing focus and becoming more qualitative in nature. Reports from The Climate Registry's site which covers facilities in parts of the US and Canada, tend not to be so up to date or that user friendly to generate, but they do identify the six major greenhouse gases at facility level.

Extending Reporting to Smaller Businesses

How might the reporting of greenhouse gas emissions by small businesses that currently are not required to submit annual reports be improved? Would it for example:

• Be feasible to change company law and introduce a statutory obligation to publish such information? I doubt this will be possible for now because all sorts of organisations would lobby against the idea.
• Be possible to obtain results by seeking details from the regulatory authorities via freedom of information requests? Possible, but this would still require a lot of hard work to interpret any details received.
• Be feasible to develop software that allowed organisations to quickly determine and record their externalities whilst (subject to audit) allowing them to retain the detailed information in-house? I think this is an approach which could have some potential.



• What are the legal issues that are preventing businesses from publishing details of their externalities? Can these be addressed by altering the provisions of legal statutes?
• How can the processes that some businesses already use to record emissions of pollutants:
  • be used by other businesses that to date have not had to report emissions?
  • be modified to cover a wider range of externalities? and
  • be incorporated in management reports?

What Would it Take?

Two articles in the Financial Times about transport and the consumption of oil recently caught my attention. The first which discusses intelligent traffic systems includes a graph that shows a continual rise in miles travelled by vehicles in the UK, whilst the second reports a fall in demand for oil in the US. Coupled with news about a 60 mile traffic jam on the northern approach to Beijing and the fact that transportation accounts for a growing percentage of global greenhouse gas emissions (going on 25%), I thought I would raise the question:

What would it take to reduce people's use of the car?

1. Price? This would appear to be the most effective mechanism for changing habits, but as I have discussed in an earlier post, motorists are more than willing to pay a high 'carbon tax' for the opportunity to drive their cars. In the UK, we presently pay around £1.25 ($2.00) a litre for petrol whilst motorists in the US typically pay 46 pence a litre ($2.7/US gallon) for their gasoline. What kind of price increase would be needed to reduce demand and reflect a truer value of the embodied energy content of this finite resource? £2, 3 or even £5 a litre? Just try asking this question of friends and wait for their outraged responses !!
2. Demand? The second of the two graphs shows how the recession and loss of employment could be affecting recent demand for oil in the US. As the FT points out, Americans drive to buy 'stuff', take holidays and get to work. It is not that much different here in the UK, except that using the car to go on holiday may not represent such a large a percentage of annual consumption as in the US. Either way, economic activity as we currently know it, remains stubbornly linked to the purchase of hydrocarbons and the driving of vehicles.

   Vehicle Traffic in the UK and Oil Demand in the US
   Reproduced from the FT (without permission). Sources - see links above

3. Supply? Might we ever see a 'Mad Max' type of world, where scarcity of supply would dramatically curb use?
4. Public Transport? Enhancements to public transport could persuade city commuters to leave their cars at home, but for those living in the suburbs, buses and trains will struggle to compete with the convenience of having a car parked in the drive.
5. Road Pricing? Excessive use of the car gives rise to externalities (pollution, traffic jams, etc.) that governments have attempted to tax or charge. In the case of the UK, such efforts have commonly been voted down by local referendum or shunted into touch by popular outcry. We will wait to see if the new Coalition Government is interested in promoting some national form of road pricing for lorries and/or cars.
6. Other Taxation? Longer term, I wonder whether thought might be given to charging for the energy / carbon dioxide expended by vehicles in generating economic wealth. For example, how would the return on energy used in driving to a shopping mall to buy a weekly complement of food compare with that expended by the supermarket using a van to deliver the same food to your home? How much energy does a fast food outlet consume in using a moped to deliver pizza to an office and is this a sustainable business model?
7. Concern about Climate Change? Ha ha !! The idea that oil might be a finite resource, some of which should be saved for our grand-children or that on-going combustion of fuels could lead to problems with the climate still does not have a place in people's thinking.
8. New Technologies? Deployment of hybrid- or new electric cars might improve fuel efficiencies marginally, but essentially energy must be consumed to develop such technologies. See Professor MacKay's commentary in Chapter 20 of "Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air" for more information about the future options for such modes of transport.
9. The Value of Time? Is there something in people's perception of discounting the future that might influence their decision to travel by car? What is the value of time and convenience to people in a modern society?

I would be interested to hear what others might have to say about all this.

10 Ways to Appear Carbon Neutral

I have written an article to be published shortly in the Chemical Engineer that identifies a number of work-arounds (some deliberate, some performed unknowingly) that companies use to appear 'carbon neutral' when reporting emissions of greenhouse gases. I have taken the opportunity in this web post to update and expand upon some of the details presented in the article.

Most organisations are aware of a reputational need to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, but any drive to implement will be tempered by the wishes of management to keep the effort and cost of collating the necessary data to a minimum. It is also likely that the risk of placing details in the public domain will raise concerns at board level and within legal departments. For example, submitting data to voluntary schemes, presenting information in sustainability reports or discussing climate related risks in the management reports that accompany financial results could create a record trail that might expose companies to future liabilities should climate change begin to have a more marked impact on people's lives. Given such issues, it is not surprising that uptake of emissions reporting to date has been guarded.

Whilst the marketing objective is to demonstrate that a business is carbon neutral, the following examples show how companies have started to account for their emissions, commonly by under-reporting or by exploiting differences in scope categories:

1. Limit reporting to those areas of the business where emissions can be measured or computed most easily. This commonly encompasses the following mixture of readings:
   • Scope 1 - stationary and mobile sources of combustion
   • Scope 2 - purchased electricity, and
   • Scope 3 - business travel
2. Purchase offsets. These allow a business to claim neutrality at little cost, but the technique usually overlooks the quantities of gases generated by those companies supplying goods and services to the business - see for example the following article published by the Wall Street Journal which examined a claim by Dell the computer manufacturer that its operations were carbon neutral.

   The availability of offsets also encourages organisations not to invest in less carbon intensive processes as evidenced by the numbers of carbon credits purchased in recent years by European power generation companies and steel manufacturers. Concerns have also been raised about some of the methodologies used to create offsets under the UNFCCC's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), in particular those associated with the over-production and subsequent destruction of the hydrofluorocarbon and major green house forcing agent, HFC-23.

3. Focus reporting on the one gas – carbon dioxide. Emissions of other greenhouse gases such as methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) have much higher warming potentials, but until recently there has only been a voluntary requirement for organisations to record quantities released into the atmosphere as part of their carbon footprint. This will change with the introduction of mandatory reporting in the US and proposals to increase the scope of the European trading scheme when Phase 2 ends in 2012.

4. Omit supply chain / Scope 3 emissions. The greenhouse gases embedded in the goods and services that companies purchase from other parties to generate revenue and grow their balance sheets can constitute a very large part of any organisation's total emissions - see for example a recent paper by Carnegie-Mellon's Green Design Institute (GDI) that reviews the carbon footprint of enterprises across different sectors of the US economy.

5. Outsource manufacturing capabilities to companies located in other countries. This is an approach that the developed nations have unwittingly relied upon to help them report a supposed reduction in emissions in recent years.

6. Use subsidiaries or licence process technologies to companies in regions of the world where disclosure is not mandatory. This is an effective technique that international corporations have used to move the reporting of large quantities of gas ‘off-book’.

7. Invest in, but do not own or hold a controlling interest in organisations that are large emitters of greenhouse gases. This is commonly used by banks and investment houses to minimise reporting of Scope 3 emissions.

   Accounting for Greenhouse Gas Inventories
   Comparison of Organisational Boundary and Investment Approaches

   GHG Protocol - Guide to Designing Accounting & Reporting Programs, 2007		WRI Report - Accounting for Risk: GHG inventory for Financial Institutions, 2009

8. Rely on an economic down-turn to reduce emissions or close / mothball assets that previously have been allocated large emission quotas.

9. Submit emissions data in a timely manner to a voluntary reporting scheme. Demonstrating a company’s commitment to reporting can earn high marks in annual surveys, but does not necessarily reflect true emissions performance. A recent example can be seen in a scheme promoted by the Carbon Disclosure Project where more than half the companies ranking highly in a Global 500 Leadership Index actually demonstrated very poor returns on embodied carbon employed - typically, emission intensities greater than 2,000 tons CO2 / million $ revenue.

   Emissions Intensity of Leadership Companies by Sector
   Source: Carbon Disclosure Project 2009, Table 3, Global 500 Report

10. Rely on good advertising copy. This is an effective marketing technique widely used with sustainability reporting and in corporate social responsibility (CSR) circles.

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For more material on the reporting of greenhouse gases, please consult the following posts:

• Reporting GHG Emissions - 01
• Mandatory Reporting of GHGs
• Corporate Reporting of GHGs

Reduction of EU Emissions - A Sleight of Hand?

The EU's Environment Agency (EEA) in a recent press release reports that member states continue to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and that values for 2008 were 11% less than levels recorded in 1990. Sources of the decline include the closure of manufacturing plant, reduced consumption of coal, increased use of gas and renewables (biomass, wind and hydro-electric) and improved use of energy. The recession that began in 2009 has further reduced emissions in the manufacturing, construction and transport sectors.

Deepwater Horizon - Some Considerations

It is more than six weeks since the Deepwater blowout and notwithstanding the truly sad pictures of birds covered in oil, loss (unseen) of marine life and serious environmental damage, I think it important that people should reflect a little more on how society's demand for oil (and not just BP's) have brought this disaster upon the Gulf.

The UK Remains an Energy Hog!

The illustration below comes from an interesting video that I came across recently on YouTube. Although the accompanying sound track is not to my liking and I would have preferred it to be slower so that there was more time to absorb the information, the animated time-lapse does show how the UK, followed by Europe, the Eastern USA, Japan and more recently Korea, has been a centre of carbon dioxide emissions (and by inference energy consumption) since the start of industrialisation in the 18th Century.

Emissions Intensity in the Energy Sector

A cursory review of data presented in the Carbon Disclosure Project's (CDP) Global 500 Report for 2009 provides some interesting insights into the emissions intensity of companies operating in the energy sector.

Reporting Greenhouse Gas Emissions - 02

Considerable time and effort is needed to log and compute emissions data. To this end, suitable data architectures need to be developed to simplify the future reporting of emissions. The following example illustrates elements of such a system. Features include:

Reporting Greenhouse Gas Emissions - 01

Despite slow progress in negotiations to secure an international agreement that would replace the Kyoto protocol when it expires in 2012, work continues in a number of jurisdictions to enhance accounting guidelines and to implement mandatory and voluntary systems of emissions reporting. Summaries of the main programs that businesses, government agencies and non-government organisations have adopted to date are presented in Tables 1 and 2 of this article.

Cumulative Emissions of CO2

An analysis of published data (see graph below) indicates human activity has been responsible for releasing more than 300 billion tons of carbon (1.1 trillion tons of CO2) into the atmosphere since the start of the industrial revolution and that this represents something approaching 55% of a total that scientists predict will lead to significant climate stress if the resultant rise in carbon dioxide levels is not halted. Although the figures used in preparing the graph do not consider other factors such as deforestation / change of land use (human induced) or increased acidification of the oceans (environmental response to higher atmospheric concentrations of CO2), it may be concluded there is not much time remaining for nations to negotiate quotas if concentrations in excess of 450 ppm (parts per million) are to be avoided.

Thoughts after Copenhagen

I had not expected participants to conclude a final agreement in Copenhagen, but I have been surprised by the reported lack of progress. The issues to be tackled are fiendishly complex, but this does not explain how the drafts available at the start of the conference seem to have been dropped after two weeks of talks and replaced on the last day by the non-binding Copenhagen Accord. Whether this is simply a reflection of the fact that a lot more countries and vested interests are now involved in the process of negotiation, I cannot say but I do think the UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) team will need to demonstrate some real progress over the next few months, or a new Kyoto Protocol or a successor agreement may not happen.

The 'Carbon Tax' on UK Motorists

A simple exercise to convert the duty on petrol to an equivalent carbon tax shows that motorists in the UK are paying some €1,000 or $1,500 per tonne of carbon emitted for the privilege of driving a car! This may be compared with the price of a carbon dioxide permit purchased under Phase II of the EU's scheme whose equivalent cost currently only amounts to some €15 x 44/12 = €55 per tonne of carbon emitted.

People's Response to Climate Change

From conversations with friends and colleagues these last few months it seems no one really understands or cares that much for this climate change thing! When asked, reactions typically invoke a laugh and comments such as 'what's the point of worrying', 'they tax us enough as it is' or 'how come it's so cold this winter'?

Some Points for Copenhagen

Here is a list of some topics that I feel should be pursued whilst the diplomats continue to negotiate a climate change treaty in Copenhagen this December. These are practical measures that would build technical confidence and social understanding in anticipation of the time when an agreement between the different interests can be concluded. I would not expect this to occur much before 2011.

Mandatory Reporting of GHGs

The US's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has posted to the Federal Register final details of a mandatory reporting rule (MRR) that will extend the Clean Air Act (CAA) to cover the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG's). The rule to be effective from 29 December 2009 will be codified under Section 40 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 98 and will require the owners or operators of plants that emit more than 25,000 metric tons per year of carbon dioxide or equivalent gases (CO2e) to record and submit annual reports to the EPA. The figure is similar to the 20 MW thermal capacity limit for industrial plants set by the European Union under its emissions trading scheme (ETS).

Some Climate Change Webcasts

As I continue to learn more about the use of social media, I thought I would prepare a post with links to some of webcasts about emissions and climate change that have caught my eye over these last few months. Here they are, courtesy of YouTube and as a belated contribution to this year's Blog Action Day (which I did not know was to be dedicated to Climate Change !)

Combustion of Coal in China

Data collated and published by organisations such as the International Energy Agency (IEA) and British Petroleum (BP) show that China is the World's largest producer of coal, amounting to 2.7 billion metric tonnes in 2008 and accounting for some 40% of total global output. Chinese coal also has a high sulphur content (between 1 and 5%) and there is limited capacity in the regions where it is mined to clean the fuel by water wash prior to transport.

Carbon Emissions from Aircraft and Ships

Whilst aviation and shipping along with other mobile and non-domestic sources were excluded from the emissions-reduction targets agreed under the Kyoto convention of 1997, there has been growing pressure to include these two sectors in any successor to the protocol. Their contribution to total global emissions is around 5%, is growing and should be easier to regulate than the much larger road sector (of which more in a later posting).

The Visualisation of Carbon Dioxide Emissions

A number of organisations and individuals are using interactive maps and web casts to visualise the emissions of carbon dioxide to great effect. The ones presented here show the results from two US endeavours: Purdue University's Vulcan Project and NatCarb.org.

The Cost of Abating Greenhouse Gases

The consultants McKinsey & Co have produced a number of reports that analyse the life cycle cost effectiveness and capital investment required for a wide range of technologies and practices capable of reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases.

US Power Plant Emissions and CO2 Pipelines

Here are a couple of maps showing the location of power plants in the United States, the amount of carbon dioxide they emit and details of a network of pipelines that is currently used to transport carbon dioxide (in a liquefied state) to oil fields to enhance the recovery of crude.